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Teenage life is tough. You’re at the mercy of parents, teachers, and siblings, all of whom insist on continuing to treat you like a kid and refuse to leave you alone. So what do you do when it all gets to be too much? You retreat to your room (and maybe slam the door).

Even in our era of Snapchat and hoverboards, bedrooms remain a key part of teenage life, one of the only areas where a teen can exert control and find some privacy. And while these separate bedrooms only became commonplace after World War II, the idea of the teen bedroom has been around for a long time. With Get Out of My Room!, Jason Reid digs into the deep historical roots of the teen bedroom and its surprising cultural power. He starts in the first half of the nineteenth century, when urban-dwelling middle-class families began to consider offering teens their own spaces in the home, and he traces that concept through subsequent decades, as social, economic, cultural, and demographic changes caused it to become more widespread. Along the way, Reid shows us how the teen bedroom, with its stuffed animals, movie posters, AM radios, and other trappings of youthful identity, reflected the growing involvement of young people in American popular culture, and also how teens and parents, in the shadow of ongoing social changes, continually negotiated the boundaries of this intensely personal space.

Richly detailed and full of surprising stories and insights, Get Out of My Room! is sure to offer insight and entertainment to anyone with wistful memories of their teenage years. (But little brothers should definitely keep out.)

Deregulation, revenge evictions, corruption, and day-to-day instability: these are realities becoming ever more familiar for those of us who rent our homes or apartments. At the same time, house prices are skyrocketing and the promise of homeownership is now an impossible dream for many. This is the rent-trap, an inescapable consequence of market-induced inequality.
 
Samir Jeraj and Rosie Walker offer the first in-depth case study of the private rental sector in the United Kingdom, exploring the rent-trap injustices in a first-world economy and exposing the powers that conspire to oppose regulation. A quarter of British MPs are landlords; rent strike is almost impossible; and sudden evictions are growing. Nevertheless, drawing on inspiration from movements in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, and elsewhere, The Rent Trap shows how people are starting to fight back against the financial burdens, health risks, and vicious behavior of landlords, working to create a world of fairer, safer housing for all—lessons that extend well beyond the borders of the UK.